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A Rose by any other name…

Retention, Persistent, Resilience, or GRIT … How do we keep our students engaged and invested in their personal journeys ensuring their academic success?

Middle Tennessee State University created a comprehensive multi-departmental initiative which provided proactive programming and communications to low performing students, focused on assisting each student in course correction. The program, named REBOUND aimed to connect at risk students with academic and tutoring support services. The program attempted to build resilient or grit in the student by reassuring them one “miss” or academic set back does not need to end a fledgling academic career. The result was a fall-to-fall retention rate (among the 96 students who participated in REBOUND) of 46%, compared with 29% for the non-participants.

The acronym REBOUND created by MTSU is:

Retake classes.Engage your purpose.Be intentional about attendance.Own your future.Understand what went wrong.Narrow your activities.Determine that you are going to succeed.